I, too, think it would be cool to be Princess of Monaco

Talk about a fancy city! What a culture change from the modest cliff villages of Cinque Terre!

We left the hotel (without backpacks this time, phew!) around 9:30am, ready to explore and find breakfast. We didn't find much in the way of a pastry shop or cafe, but we did find the Casino of Monte-Carlo. It is huge and ornate, with pristine gardens and fountains, and almost looks like it could be a church when viewed from far away (an indication, perhaps, of the belief system of the wealthy???). We took a few pictures and ate a clementine (from the hotel fitness center, not from one of the many clementine trees in the city, full of fruit).... however, this didn't do much for the 3 of us. So we went off in search of something, anything to eat (we found plenty of Bentley, Mercedes, Rolls Royce, and even Maybach dealerships- cool, but unhelpful), and eventually found a sort of fun zone for kids/adults that had a very chic McDonald's on the 3rd floor. We were the only customers for the most part, but we did not sit in silence by any means... they had clubbing music on at 10:30am. I guess the Monaconians enjoy their loud dance music.

We left the McDo, walked along the coast line, and took a water taxi towards the Palais and vielle ville (old town). The sun was beginning to peep out as we walked up the steps (yes, more steps...although had we known, we would have taken the elevator the whole way up!). The coast line was amazing, but sort of bizarre- huge yachts, tall luxury apartment buildings with seaside views, and cloudy mountains. But when we got up to the top of the hill with the palace and old town, we started to feel like we were in Disneyland. Everything was so clean and perfect feeling and the buildings were so pretty with their rot iron balconies and ornate molding. We wound our way through the old village to the Palace... a very castle-y looking building with guards in funny looking hats, piles of canon balls, and more beautiful views of the coast.

We enjoyed having the sun come out... it was almost hot, well, not hot, but too warm for our winter coats. We went down the hill a different way towards the harbor with the hockey rink and ferris wheel. There were tons of little places to get sophisticated French fair food (crepes, waffles, candied apples, and fondue), carnival rides, and even a course for little kids to get inside big plastic balls and roll around. The fair still had a lot of Christmas decorations up... so we took a few more pictures (weird to have Christmas scenes in the same place as yachts, palm trees, and the Mediterranean).

After a morning of walking around Monte-Carlo, we felt like we finally got the feel of how to navigate the city. It's not so much big, as just complex... everything seems to be build on top of each other... elevators and escalators taking you to different parts of town. By about 1pm, we headed to the hotel to get our bags and get to the train station.

We are now home in Lyon, ready for bed before our big Paris adventure for New Years Eve! Enjoy the pictures. I'm saving a good one for my next post. I'm not bringing my computer tomorrow, so I may not blog again until 2011!

Happy last day of 2010!